


Pasty White Raisin

by dandeliononfire



Series: Pasty White Raisin Age Gap AU [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: AU College (Sort Of), Angst, But Also Funny, But also, F/M, I own it, Peeta being dumb and self-loathing, age gap, but also we love him so..., everlark, i coined it, katniss pining, pasty white raisin in a great phrase, so there, twelve year age gap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 12:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19005487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandeliononfire/pseuds/dandeliononfire
Summary: AU - Modern Everlark. Katniss Everdeen knows her own heart when it comes to the older, non-traditional student she sits next to in night class. But Peeta Mellark sees only a young woman suffering from an unrealistic crush. When his insecurities threaten her academic career, his commitment to being selfless is put to the test. Twelve-Year Age Gap. (This was originally a one-shot birthday drabble over on Tumblr, and was popular enough it launched the Pasty White Raisin Christmas Edition multi-chapter Fic.)





	Pasty White Raisin

“…and that, ladies and germs, is why most businesses can’t keep their books balanced,” Professor Abernathy said unenthusiastically, signaling the end of the first class of the community college’s night section of Introduction to Small Business Accounting. He tossed his stick of chalk onto the tray under the blackboard, “For Wednesday, read chapter two on acceptable accounting principles.”

Unlike the rest of the class that had laptops that took time to power down and pack up, Katniss and the man she was sitting next to were armed only with spiral notebooks. As he carefully finished notes, Katniss leaned back in her chair and watched him.

He’d caught her attention almost the moment she’d walked into the room, and he’d kept it the entire class. Her first guess was that he was in his mid-thirties, but with how exhausted he looked, cheeks hollow and face slack, it was impossible to tell. He could easily fit anywhere within that decade, between six and a dozen years older than her twenty-four. He was blond and blue-eyed, with thick shoulders. Patches of flour were ground into his hunter-green polo, embroidered with a bakery’s logo, and an orange smear at the side of his neck looked like a remnant of frosting which had resisted a hasty wipe.

Something about the expression on his face, determined but also exhausted and a bit sad, had immediately made her chest hurt.

And then, his blond hair and ragged stubble had made her chest tighten in a different way, because they set off his blue eyes so perfectly.

She’d slid into the seat next to him and introduced herself before she could lose her nerve. He smelled like fresh bread.

And then, when he’d responded that his name was Peeta, she’d given him a warmer smile than she was used to sharing, because he looked like he could really use a friend.

The corners of his eyes had wrinkled up with a surprised smile at being really noticed.

And then, she’d smiled more, because she liked  _his smile_.

Which had made him smile more, which created a dimple in his right cheek.

And then, she’d stuck out one of her hands, because she she’d felt suddenly very curious how one of his would feel.

The answer was strong, calloused and warm.

And then, when he’d squeezed her hand before letting go, she’d been sure part of her soul leaked out to him through the skin of her palm, because the moment the contact ended she felt an unfamiliar emptiness in her belly.

The rest of the class had been a series of ‘and thens.’ The rolling of his tendons and muscles in his left hand as he rotated his pencil between his fingers. The tip of his tongue peeking out between his lips as he methodically etched his notes. The way he responded to two of Abernathy’s questions with thoughtful, complete answers. The easy, melodic cadence to his laugh after Abernathy cracked a sarcastic joke. The way his exhaustion-pale cheeks flushed when Abernathy cracked a joke about Katniss paying more attention to her neighbor than to the lecture.

But she didn’t care, not really. Because some spark had been lit inside her, warm and dangerous, and for the first time in her closed-off and head-down life, she thought she might actually be a goner.

She’d refocused on the instruction anyway, to avoid coming off like some crush-obsessed girl, but she’d kept watching him out of the corner of her vision.

But whatever she had felt, he didn’t seem affected; as soon he was done finishing his notes, he grabbed up his textbook and notebook and shuffled out of the classroom in a hurry without even looking over at her.

____

Five months later…

“…and that, ladies and germs, is why accountants go to Club Fed in warm, sunny Florida.” Professor Abernathy swiped unkempt hair out of his face and tossed his stick of chalk back onto tray under the blackboard. “For Wednesday’s class, read chapter twenty-three on common ethics pitfalls for corporate accountants.”

Peeta leaned over and bumped Katniss with his shoulder, grinning. In a mock he whispered, “And that, Katniss, is how washed-up professors end up teaching night classes in cold, snowy Panem.”

“Stop it. I like him,” she laughed and swatted him away.

Abernathy noticed their whispering and pointed at Peeta and shot back in his gravelly voice, “Careful, Mellark. I can still flunk you.”

Peeta’s entire body stiffened, but Katniss snorted. After Abernathy gathered his materials and left the room, she bumped Peeta’s arm with her shoulder, “Relax. He’s not going to flunk you. You’re his favorite student.”

“No, I’m not. You’re his favorite. He teases you like a daughter.” His head shook with admiration, “And I still can’t figure out how you manage to answer every question he throws at you without even bringing the book to class. You know this material so much better than I do. I’m pretty sure I would’ve failed last semester’s midterm if you hadn’t helped me study for it.”

She shrugged, trying to brush off the thanks.

“Well, it’s what you do.”

“No, Katniss, it’s what  _you_  do,” he said, his good humor suddenly gone and his lips pressed into a tight line. He shoved his notes and textbook into a backpack and looked away, “Just like I still can’t figure out why you’re so nice to me all the time.”

“Because you bring me cheese buns on Fridays?” He’d been doing that every Friday since their first midterm study session that last fall.

“Those buns are perfect, Peeta. So light and buttery and absolutely  _mouth watering_ ,” she said with a slight hint of a moan to tease him. Slight, but still enough to draw looks from other students near by.

He turned pink.

Her patience had paid off. Aside from the cheese buns, he’d started opening up to her after that mid-term. He was single; never married, never engaged. The youngest of three sons, born to a meek-mannered baker who’d died when Peeta was fourteen. He’d had an abusive mother who kept the family business going by ruling it, and her boys, with a literal iron fist. But as his older brothers had aged out of the household and chosen to leave her control, they’d left Peeta to shoulder the bakery or let their father’s legacy die. After high school, to keep the shop open he’d chosen to keep living in the apartment over the bakery with his mother and forgo college. She fell ill in his late twenties, and he’d taken over the business entirely when she died from a heart attack when he was thirty-one. He’d poured his every waking hour into the business, but with the economy down-trending over the last decade, Peeta had found it increasingly harder to keep afloat. He’d discovered only on the brink of bankruptcy the problem had been his embezzling bookkeeper, but in taking over the accounting, Peeta had realized just how poor control over inventory and purchases he’d had all along. Abernathy’s two semester night course had fit the bill for teaching himself how to help the business while still allowing him to work in the mornings and day.

Nothing had changed since that first day of class. Katniss had fallen in love. And not the ridiculously flirtatious, lusty, cheap sort of love. But the kind that made her shy when moments of quiet passed between them, or made her worry about him when he looked more tired than normal, which was more frequently since no one who gets up at three-thirty every morning should be at school until nine at night three times a week, or made her find every shared slice of their life in which she could be his teammate, whether lending a hand at the bakery on the rare times he was too-shorthanded to open, helping him with the bakery’s books around the big baking holidays, or simply making sure he laughed extra hard on the evenings he looked extra beat down.

And with how free he’d become with his smiles and jokes, his frequent lean-ins to whisper, occasional sideways stares when he thought she wasn’t looking, the fact she’d found a sketch of her face on the back of one of his notebook pages, and how he’d made a habit of arriving ten minutes early to class just to catch up with her about how her working day as the bookkeeper for a local brewery had gone, she thought he might be on the same road.

Those ten minutes before class every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, a total of thirty minutes out of every week, Katniss was happy. Truly happy. Content. He made her feel comfortable, and never once in danger of being objectified or exploited. He was considerate, thoughtful, and when they spoke she always had his full attention. She’d felt safe enough around him almost right away to share that both her parents had died when she was sixteen and that she’d had helped her uncle raise her little sister and push her forward in life to the point she was currently attending a prestigious university on the other side of the country.

When Peeta got up and left, still bright pink at Katniss’ teasing, she grabbed her notebook and walked shoulder-to-shoulder with him out into the cold, starless night.

“Well, I’ll see you Wednesday, Katniss,” he gave her a quick, tight smile and started out-pacing her down the icy sidewalk.

“Peeta, wait.”

He slowed but didn’t halt or turn around at all.

“I know you have to get up early, but…” She hesitated, heart pounding. She’d come close to trying to bridge the friend gap once before. It had been a little before Christmas, when they’d walked out of the last class of the fall semester together and she’d bragged about her recipe for lamb stew. She’d found out he didn’t have holiday plans and had tried to convince him to let her cook Christmas Eve dinner.

He’d shot her down by apologizing and claiming he’d be too tired from the holiday baking rush.

She licked her lips and braced herself for a potential second shoot-down, but was determined to try anyway. Since he’d kept walking away, she had to raise her voice, “Peeta, do you want to go for hot chocolate with me?”

He stopped, finally, and turned around, his eyes closed and his face tightened into a mask. He didn’t say anything for a long time but then finally he sighed sadly and met her eyes, “I can’t, Katniss. I shouldn’t have… I just can’t.”

Whatever he was saying, it wasn’t about hot chocolate.

Katniss’ stomach cramped painfully, “Peeta…”

He shook his head and walked away.

___________

On Wednesday, Peeta rushed into the class a mere seconds before the lecture started. He took a chair near the door.

___________

On Friday, he was two minutes early, but still sat away from her. Since it was a night class, there were only ten other students and that left several open seats around him. Katniss grabbed her notebook and moved next to him. When she forced herself to offer the most cheerful version of hello she could, he grunted hello and nodded stiffly, but didn’t look up.

___________

On Monday, he wasn’t in class.

___________

On Wednesday, he showed up looking exhausted from the Valentine’s Day rush. Katniss was sitting in her new seat near the door, next to where he’d moved the two classes before. He stopped in his tracks once he saw her there and dropped his eyes when she caught his.

He slipped into a seat too far away for them to talk.

Where all he had to show her was his back.

___________

On Friday, Katniss arrived early and sat next to the chair he’d moved to on Wednesday. Even with her pride and heart wounded, she was convinced that whatever was going on with him had to do with his own insecurities and not dislike of her.

But when he arrived and saw where she was sitting, he picked a different chair again.

___________

And on it went the next week, until every time Peeta walked into class the handful of other students made whispered jokes and snickers until Katniss’ face was on fire and she was starting to think it really was her.

After that Friday’s class she had to run just to keep up with how fast he blew out of the building.

“Peeta, wait!”

“I can’t. I have to be up early.”

“Stop it,” she grabbed his arm and yanked him. “What did I do? Just tell me what I did that you’re… shunning me.” Her face was burning and she felt the sting of threatening tears in her eyes.

He looked at her long enough that for the first time in weeks she was able to see his eyes. They looked hopeless and begged her to pretend nothing was wrong.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Katniss.”

“Don’t.” She put her hand on his arm and then let it trail down until she wrapped her fingers gently around his already cold ones, “Don’t lie. If you don’t like me, you can just say it.”

“Katniss…” His shoulders sagged, and he stared down at their hands before gently pulling his free.

“You could just be honest with me. I don’t see how that could cost you.”

“Katniss,” he shook his head. “Katniss, I’m almost thirty-seven. You’re an intelligent, beautiful…  _incredible_  young woman.” He took in a breath and blew it out in a long stream of fog, looking down, “You need to find someone your own age.”

“What?” The twisting of her face mirrored the twisting of her heart. Peeta started walking away again, but she jogged up and easily got in front of him. “Don’t you walk away from me, Peeta Mellark. Do you like me, or not? Because this class is the best three hours of my week, every week. They’ve been the best hours of my life since… If you really don’t like me, then say that. Say anything.” She let the hurt turn to anger to keep from crying, poking him hard in the chest, “But don’t throw age out as the excuse like some coward!”

His hands fisted at his sides, and after a moment he looked up, eyes cold and jaw set.

“Katniss, this crush you have on me is childish. It’s flattering. And I’m sorry if I let myself enjoy it too much, and I’m especially sorry if my conduct misled you in any way. But this has to stop. And I should have said it a long time ago.”

She didn’t move when he stepped around her and walked away.

She didn’t move for a full five minutes, until the cold had invaded her bones and she was shivering.

_________

After that, she didn’t go back to class.

_________

Two Saturdays later…

Someone was knocking on Katniss’ door. She rolled over on her couch-slash bed and pressed her face into her pillow, trying to ignore them. It might be one of her few girlfriends trying to rouse her out of the dumps of depression keeping her locked up in her tiny apartment for everything except work.

But the knocking didn’t stop, and since her apartment was pretty much only a small square except for the small kitchen and an impossibly small bathroom, there was no other room for her to shut herself away in to mute the noise.

She hefted her legs out of bed, rubbed at her face, and then padded to the door to rip it open.

“What?”

It was Peeta Mellark.

Dressed in jeans and a Henley, with his top button undone and the edge of his collar folded down like a dog-eared page.

She managed to lift her eyes from the little patch of skin there so she could see what he wanted, but it still wasn’t hard to keep her voice cold, “What do you want?”

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

He blew air out his nose, jaw bulging for a second.

“Look, I’m sorry for what I said. How I said it. But I don’t want this to hurt your school.”

She shook her head, not understanding.

“Abernathy told me that if you miss another class, you’ll be mandatorily flunked because you missed two classes back in January with that flu.”

The flu during which Peeta had texted for her address and left a tub of steaming wonton soup from her favorite Chinese restaurant, and a paper bag of cheese buns, in front of her door every afternoon before sneaking away without waiting for her to answer his knock.

It hurt too much so she turned away and started to close the door on him, but his palm slapped against the wood and wouldn’t let her.

She shrugged like she didn’t care and started walking back for bed. He could come in or leave as he pleased, since she already knew that even if he didn’t turn and walk away, she didn’t have to worry about him staying long.

She heard the door close and then his loud steps hesitate, “Is this apartment even legal? It’s barely more than a broom closet.”

She turned around and frowned, voice dripping with sarcasm to hide her hurt, “No, Peeta. It’s  _small_. It’s  _frugal_. Because I’m a single  _woman_ , with no one to take care of anymore and it’s a responsible,  _adult_  thing to do to manage my finances and save money when I don’t have to spend it. Because unlike a  _child_ , I have an adult job, which I’ve very  _maturely_  kept for six years, in which I do very complicated,  _adult-like_  things like balance books and manage purchase orders. Because I don’t need extra space for  _childish_  hobbies like doll collecting or stuffed animals, fuck you very much.”

She stalked away, which meant taking only three strides, before dropping to sit on the couch and bury her face in her hands.

“Katniss, about the class…”

“Leave it, Peeta,” she mumbled into her hands while trying to center herself, trying to not give in to the wave of depression crashing over her.

His shoes appeared in her field of vision.

“Katniss, this is serious. Please don’t throw away your grade just because of me. School is so important.”

“Do  _what_?” She shot up to her feet, pushing him towards the door with repeated shoves of her palms against his chest. He grappled and tried to grab them, but she was too fast, too wild, “Don’t you  _dare_  talk to me like you’re my  _father_! And between the two of us, I’m the only one who has  _ever_  had to be a parent!”

She got him backed to the door, but he finally snagged her wrists and pulled them down, holding them at her sides. She leaned forward involuntarily, pressing her face into his chest and crying for a few moments.

“My mistake,” she said, voice muffled by his shirt, “was that I thought you believed you were too old for me. When all you  _really think_  is that I’m a child. It’s not true. And it’s not fair.”

“I know,” he whispered, brushing his nose through her hair. “I know, Katniss.”

She pushed away, and tried to pull him back from the door so she could get it open.

“Get out, Peeta. I don’t need you to package your guilt as pity just to make yourself feel better. Go back to your bakery… or your nursing home… or your geriatric ward, or wherever else it is you keep your dentures white and tidy, and leave me alone.”

“Dentures?” Peeta bit his lip to keep from smiling.

It made her furious that she was hurting and he’d found a reason to laugh.

But then his teeth released his lip and his tongue trailed out to sooth it, and she was suddenly desperate to find a way to coax him into a full smile.

“Yes,” she leaned against him again, finding courage in the fact he was looking her instead of away. “And have a nice life, Peeta Mellark,” she said, clearly insincere. “When you’re in your nineties and I’m in my eighties and we end up in the same old folks home together and you’re nothing but a hunched over, bitter old man, I’ll remember this moment and refuse to shuffle my walker under the mistletoe in the common room when you ask to kiss me at Christmas.”

His burst of laughter shook them both and she allowed herself a guarded smile. His blue eyes looked alive again, like before he’d started withdrawing. She wondered if he realized he’d grabbed her elbows and was holding her to him. Her fingers bunched up the fabric of his shirt as her mind raced for anything else she could say to keep him there, in that moment, in that mood.

To keep him laughing long enough to get him out of his own head.

“You’re doing me a favor, you know,” she yanked gently on his shirt,“by refusing to fall in love with me or wanting a life with me.” She didn’t miss the fact her words made him suck in a breath and his fingers grip her elbows tight. “Because once I’d have to put you in the nursing home, in my oversensitive jealousy I’d probably’ve been able to take out two or three attractive young orderlies without being found out, but since you have this rule against younger women I’d have to worry about the female residents, and someone might start asking questions if a whole wing of little old biddies suddenly turned up missing.”

His tongue came out again, this time swiping at his lip as his eyes flicked down to her mouth.

“You’d take out a whole wing of old ladies just to keep me for yourself?”

His mouth seemed closer than it had moments earlier, close enough she could kiss him if she tilted up on her toes. She couldn’t tell which of them was starting to breath hard, since their chests were still pressed together, but at least one of them was.

“And just think, if you had actually decided to fall for a  _child_  like me, imagine how embarrassed I’d be at our kids’ college graduation.”

His brows went up at the same time one of his hands lifted to tuck her hair behind her ear.

“How embarrassed would you be at our kid’s college graduation,  _very adult_  Katniss Everdeen?”

“Very. Because first, I’d have to ask the nursing home warden for a hall pass just to get you out to attend the ceremony. And second, all the other parents would see me pushing this old, pasty white raisin around in his wheelchair and call me a shameless gold digger when I put on the breaks and climbed into his lap for a kiss.”

“Gross,” he said softly, but he was smiling and his gaze was traveling over her face. His lips were also closer; the warmth of his breath as it came in puffs against her face gave her goosebumps.

Her own tongue came out, pulling in on her bottom lip. She watched as his eyes followed the action.

She whispered, “You would make an adorable pasty, white raisin of a man, Peeta Mellark.”

“Why would you want to waste your life on me, Katniss,” he put his forehead to hers suddenly, eyes pressed shut. “I’m barely holding my business and my finances together. I keep ungodly hours. I work too hard. I’m not the kind of person anyone needs. You have such a full life ahead of you. Any man would be clambering at your door to have you.”

“Right. Because it’s so childish of me to see an attractive man with a gentle spirit, good sense of humor, a functioning moral compass, and a strong work ethic and think of him as a keeper.”

“You don’t really think I’m a keeper, Katniss. Be honest. You see me as some sad case and you feel bad for me.”

“That’s not true.”

He banged the back of his head against the wall several times. “Yes, it is Katniss. You deserve so much better than me.”

“That’s not true either.” He tried to step away, but she caught one of his hands and pulled down on his shirt until he gave in and lowered his face close enough she could press a kiss to the corner of his jaw. “If you could never love me, then going is the best thing you can do. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on in your head, not with how you sketch me in the margins of your notes when you forget I’m sitting right there. I think it’s the voice of your mother’s ghost you keep hearing.”

When he didn’t pull away, she slid her nose along his cheek before pressing her lips against his.

“Was that so bad,” she breathed.

He shook his head, eyes closed again.

She tightened her fingers around his, and when they gripped back, she kissed him again, ignoring the roar of her heartbeat in her ears.

The moment her tongue trailed along the joint of his lips, his hands tangled in her hair and he grabbed her and spun them both until she was squashed against the wall and he was kissing her like his dying breath was buried in her lungs.

They were both gasping for air when he finally pulled back.

“Are you sure, Katniss? Are you really sure? Because I don’t think I’d survive if this turned out not to be real, if I turned out to be just some crush on a fellow student and you get tired of me later.”

She laughed.

“That wasn’t supposed to be funny, Katniss,” he said, voice strained.

“I’m not a student, Peeta. Haymitch is the uncle who took my sister and I in after our parents died. I took that class when I was eighteen, which is how I got my job bookkeeping for the brewery, but I still show up for it on the nights he and I are planning to go out and have dinner to catch up.”

“But…” Peeta’s confusion was clear on his face, “You’ve been there every class. For the whole school year. And I never see you leave with him. And he’s the one who told me to get over here because you’d missed too many classes.”

“I showed up for the all the classes this year because I met you that first day. I’ve been coming there for you. I like you. He knows that. He likes you too. Believe me, we’ve talked about you a lot. Which is why he probably gave you line about me flunking, so you’d come see me.”

“The mid-term… You didn’t have an exam.”

“I’ve dropped in on his class enough over the years, I could probably teach it without the book if I had to. I’d been looking for any reason to spend more than ten minutes at a time talking with you. See if I could crack through that wall you have bricked up around yourself.”

She tried to kiss him, but he avoided it.

“Peeta,” she couldn’t take a change of heart.

He shook his head, and then smiled, “That’s all really true?”

“Yes,” she nodded vigorously and tried again to kiss him.

He pulled away again, smile slowly widening into a grin, “Then let me work for it.”

“I don’t understand.”

In response to her frown, he found her hands and squeezed them.

“Let me work for it. I need to feel like… Katniss, can we go back and pretend I haven’t been a complete ass and let me be the one trying to win  _you_  over instead?”

She smiled, warmth spreading through her chest, “I don’t need that.”

“No, but my fragile male ego does. And more than that, you deserve it.”

“Peeta, I don’t want to be chased after by you. I just want you.”

“I know, I know. I think I’m getting that finally.” He kissed her, too briefly, and then pulled back with a smile, “But don’t let me do that again until I’ve done something to earn it, got it?”

She faked a pout, “But I happen to  _want_  you to do that again.”

“And I will. I promise. Soon.”

“How soon?”

He dropped her hands and made it out her apartment door before turning around, “Will you be in class tomorrow?”

“If you want me to be.”

“I do. And we’ll do that hot chocolate afterwards?”

She nodded, “Okay.”

“And then I’ll walk you to your front door.”

She smiled, feeling shy and happy, “Okay.”

“And then that will’ve maybe earned me a goodnight kiss?”

“It might,” she smiled, catching on.

__________

Monday night…

Katniss held Peeta’s hand as he walked her down the corridor to her apartment. He waited for her to fish her keys out and then cleared his throat.

“Did you have a good time?”

“Yes.” She winked, “I had no idea you knew how to pay for our drinks using a mobile phone app, you know, since you’re from the prehistoric days when people still used cash.”

“Yuck it up, buttercup,” he shuffled forward, not taking his eyes off hers.

“Aren’t you too old to have seen that movie? Because that  _almost_  felt like a Princess Bride reference, Mr. Mellark.”

“As you wish.” His eyes dropped to her lips and then up again, his smile wider. He brushed her hands with the back of his knuckles and then laced their fingers together. “Tell me, your highness, did I earn a kiss tonight with my technological mastery?”

She made a considering  _hmmm_  sound, her own eyes focused on his mouth.

“Maybe not. But I thought the way you gave me a piggy back ride over that gigantic slush ocean in the parking lot was pretty damn studly.”

“I’ll take it,” he said, and quickly brushed his lips over hers.

He tried to step back but she yanked his hands and grinned, “Hey old man, I think your physical prowess merited you a little tongue there.”

He claimed the reward until they were both out of breath.

“Goodnight, Katniss. I’ll see you Wednesday night?”

She leaned back against her door and nodded.

“Deal.” She waited for him to make it part way down the hall before calling after him, “Oh, and Peeta?”

He turned around.

“I spent every day last semester between that mid-term study session and the last day of class working up the courage to get you a Christmas present.”

“And did you?”

She smirked, “Oh yes, Mr. Mellark.” The seduction she laced into her tone made him swallow. “I had been very nervously  _planning_  to give it to you on Christmas Eve… Until you shut me down on that offer to make you Christmas Eve dinner.”

He frowned, “Katniss, I’m sorry. I was trying to-”

“I  _think_ ,” she spoke over him, “you might have enjoyed  _unwrapping_  it.” She added after a beat, “ _A lot_.”

He choked out, “Yeah?”

She smirked.

“I might be persuaded to still give it to you… at some point.”

He was back to her in an instant, pressing her body to the wall with his and digging his fingers into her hips. His were eyes dark and glazed, and his breathing ragged, “When?”

She grinned, “Once you’ve earned it.”

He closed his eyes and blew air out his nose, half amused and half in pain.

“You’re going to make me pay for insisting on courting you, aren’t you?”

“Oh yeah.”


End file.
